On this date in History…. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, G-L-O-R-I-A…..

70 years ago: Dachau was liberated, the oldest of the Nazi concentration camps, paradigm for them all, and home and cemetery to many, simply for the fact of being a threat to Hitler’s intents and purposes. This was America’s entry upon the world stage as dominant power, rivalled for many years only by the USSR…

40 years ago: Saigon was falling (if you’re American or South Vietnamese), or being liberated (if you’re Communist or North Vietnamese), Americans and South Viet sympathizers evacuated by helicopter if they hadn’t left already. This was the USA’s first clear defeat in war, and a clear message about the limits of power…

What kind of animal are we, killing and wasting beyond our immediate needs for food and shelter, killing and torturing for the sake of misplaced doctrines and misunderstood creeds? Why does our need to believe in something become a need for greed and a penchant for destruction? We have the mutant gene; we are the other ones, the gift of consciousness becomes the curse of violence…